Computer video/audio stutter

[lilvaratep]

Recently built a new computer and I've been getting stuttering issues. Thought it was my graphics card, but it's not. The video as well as audio will stutter both in-game and while using desktop. Help will be greatly appreciated. This is my first build, and it's gone awry.

Specs:
NZXT PHANTOM 410 CASE
MSI GD65 Z77 Motherboard
120GB SSD Corsair Force GT
1TB HDD CAVIAR GREEN
DVD+-RW 16x
Windows 7 Ult 64-bit
MSI TWIN FROZR 3 7950 3GD5
ANTEC 750W PSU Model: EA-750 GREEN
i5 3570k
v6gt cpu cooler
CORSAIR VENGEANCE LOW PROFILE 2X4GB 1600

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Bring up window task manager and see if your CPU is running 100% or something

Also you should try reseating your heatsink.

 

[lilvaratep]

Pretty sure it's not the cpu. Tested with prime95, intel burn test, superpi and everything seems fine. also used memtest for intervals of an hour a few times.

 

[mfenn]

Caviar Green + Corsair Force = Not very reliable storage system

How often does the problem occur? Does it happen if you unplug your HDD?

 

[lilvaratep]

I believe the problem has gone away after I uninstalled realtek... can't believe they haven't fixed stuttering problems ever since I used to use realtek in cod:mw1

 

[mfenn]

Sounds like a DPC issue then. You can use this tool to check for DPC latency spikes.

 

[lilvaratep]

How would I use it? It's been running and its stayed a thin green for a while now.

 

[mfenn]

How would I use it? It's been running and its stayed a thin green for a while now.

You check to see if there are red or yellow spikes correlated with the stuttering. This requires you to reproduce the stuttering issue of course.

 

[lilvaratep]

ahh. well, I'm not able to reproduce the stuttering. maybe if I installed realtek again... but a warning did come up saying that I have bad drivers and I could go into devicem anager and enable/disable one at a time or something like that. dunno what that's about lol.

 

[lilvaratep]

was watching a movie on vlc player and alt tabbed to see this:

 

[lilvaratep]

Anyone know of the reasoning? It went away for a while, but I heard it again while watching youtube (once).


Here's results from latencymon and dpc latency checker:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for 0:17:08 (h:mm:ss) on all processors in the system.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SYSTEM INFORMATION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Computer name: INTEGRATED-PC
OS version: Windows 7 , 6.1, build: 7600 (x64)
CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz
Logical processors: 4
Processor groups: 1
RAM: 8135 MB total


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU SPEED
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported CPU speed: 3400.0 MHz
Measured CPU speed: 2654.0 MHz (approx.)

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED KERNEL TIMER LATENCIES
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest measured kernel timer latency (µs): 13311.990459


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MEASURED SMIs AND CPU STALLS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest measured SMI, IPI or CPU stall (µs) 0.903508


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED DPCs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest DPC routine execution time (µs): 280.895882
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time: USBPORT.SYS - USB 1.1 & 2.0 Port Driver, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%): 0.069181
Driver with highest DPC total execution time: dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in DPCs (%) 0.204425

DPC count (execution time <250 µs): 3591701
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time 500-999 µs): 2
DPC count (execution time 1000-1999 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time 2000-3999 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED ISRs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Highest ISR routine execution time (µs): 42.369706
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time: HDAudBus.sys - High Definition Audio Bus Driver, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%): 0.016853
Driver with highest ISR total time: HDAudBus.sys - High Definition Audio Bus Driver, Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%) 0.033934

ISR count (execution time <250 µs): 1284455
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 500-999 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 1000-1999 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 2000-3999 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Process with highest pagefault count: none

Total number of hard pagefaults 5790
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process: 5255
Highest hard pagefault resolution time (µs): 99756.831765
Total time spent in hard pagefaults (%): 0.042125
Number of processes hit: 0


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PER CPU DATA
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s): 13.070075
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs): 42.369706
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s): 1.263310
CPU 0 ISR count: 1250353
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs): 280.895882
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s): 7.131256
CPU 0 DPC count: 3222032
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s): 2.249077
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs): 13.662647
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s): 0.105829
CPU 1 ISR count: 27592
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs): 218.047647
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s): 0.726019
CPU 1 DPC count: 205628
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s): 1.819085
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs): 15.563529
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s): 0.020229
CPU 2 ISR count: 5030
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs): 169.065294
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s): 0.342103
CPU 2 DPC count: 94560
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s): 1.449483
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs): 16.197353
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s): 0.006352
CPU 3 ISR count: 1480
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs): 170.401765
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s): 0.208604
CPU 3 DPC count: 69483
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[mfenn]

Latencymon, that's a cool tool I haven't seen before! It gives a lot more info than just DPC latency, which is really nice.

It looks the big problem is your hard pagefault timings. A hard pagefault is when the system has to go and retrieve some memory that has been paged out to disk. If you're paging a lot, then that means you don't have enough RAM, but Windows will always page a little, no matter how much memory you have (Windows sucks like that).

Go to Computer Properties -> Advanced system settings -> Advanced Tab -> Settings in Performance box -> Advanced tab -> Change and take a screenshot the window titled Virtual Memory. That'll let us see what your pagefile setup looks like.

 

[Slugbait]

Are you using the latest mobo BIOS? There have been stuttering issues in the past that have been cured by updating the BIOS.

 

[lilvaratep]

updated bios and thought it went away. came back. I've made the assumption that it's a network issue of some sort.


I was using wired and when I did, the highest execution in latency mon would be from ndis.sys. I'm trying a wireless USB card and now it says the highest execution time is 1.909194 from USBPORT.SYS
the second hihghest as of right now is classpnp.sys
third is tcpip.sys

 

[birthdaymonkey]

If you're getting pagefile-related lag spikes, my first suspicion would be that Sandforce drive.

SSDs can cause weird issues sometime. I experienced odd freezes when I had a Mushkin Chronos in my old Thinkpad but only when AHCI was enabled--some kind of incompatibility between the motherboard's SATA controller and the drive. After I switched to an m4, it never happened again.

If you have a spare hard drive kicking around, you should try imaging your SSD to that and running off the HDD for a while. If the lag spikes go away, you know it's the Force GT causing the problems.

 

[Big Roger]

try reinstalling motherboard drivers and or update them., do what mfenn said, take a screen shot. could be that you just need to set minimum and maximum sizes of your page file to be the same, and maybe limit it to about 500- a gig of space.

 

[Slugbait]

USBPORT.SYS...we may be on to something here. Some people resolved stuttering issues after manually installing this hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2529073

Another possibility for a spike in usbport.sys is that each pair of USB ports shares a single controller. If you have two high-bandwidth devices connected to a shared pair of ports, they can be fighting for that single controller...I believe this can lead to a spike in usbport.sys, since it has to work harder. A potential solution is to use only one of the shared-controller ports, leaving the other port empty. Try segregating/rearranging USB device connections so each has its own controller.

 

[lilvaratep]

it seems that i have 1st place:
ataport.sys @ 11.34 highest execution time and
usbport.sys @ 3.73 highest " "

I believe part of it may have been my internet. I was using an ethernet cord and it would pop up with ndis.sys taking up most of the space. stopped using ethernet cord and used a usb wifi card and now usbport.sys is one of the higher ones. This is my first time seeing ataport.sys

Anyone have suggestions?
Tried reinstalling audio driver, updating it, different gpu, different gpu drivers, looked on ssdlife and checked both ssd and hdd health and they were fine, updated bios, returned bios to stock settings instead of overclocking, set to high performance, don't know what else to do.

 

[lilvaratep]

ataport not running as high anymore... now it's just usbport. I bet if I take out my wireless usb it'll go away.

edit:

plugged card back in and tcip.sys and netbt.sys jumped up to around .98 and .89

i haven't realy noticed any audio/video stuttering anymore, so not sure if these dpc latencies mean anything bad. will re-overclock and hopefully it wont spazz out.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

ataport not running as high anymore... now it's just usbport. I bet if I take out my wireless usb it'll go away.

edit:

plugged card back in and tcip.sys and netbt.sys jumped up to around .98 and .89

i haven't realy noticed any audio/video stuttering anymore, so not sure if these dpc latencies mean anything bad. will re-overclock and hopefully it wont spazz out.

If it comes back, you should really try to take the SSD out of the equation and see if that fixes it.

 

[lilvaratep]

if the stuttering happens, or if the latencies get higher?

 

[birthdaymonkey]

if the stuttering happens, or if the latencies get higher?

Stuttering mainly. Although I wouldn't be happy if I was getting big lag spikes. Something is wrong if that continues to happen.

 

[mfenn]

Anyone have suggestions?

Follow the instructions that I wrote in reply #12. I don't know why everybody is chasing down this DPC and ISR stuff when the paging latencies are an order of magnitude worse.